Understanding the Needs of a Community
Last week our class focused on approaches to understanding a community. In the morning, the class participated in a human-centred design exercise. In pairs, our goal was to redesign the gift-giving experience for our partner and developed a solution to meet our partner’s needs. Using the IDEO’s process for human-centred design (observation, ideation, rapid prototyping, user feedback, iteration, and implementation), I gained empathy, understanding, and knowledge about my partners gift-giving issue. At the end of the exercise, we both agreed that we each gained a well-thought-out solution to our gift-giving issue.
During the second half of class, we took a road trip to Hamilton to visit the Evergreen Hamilton Community Storefront. The focus was on the community engagement and consultation process to gain community input to redevelop some of Hamilton’s Waterfront. Community engagement and consultation was extremely elaborate and collaborative. The community, however, did not have complete control over waterfront decision-making. For example, from the engagement and consultation process, the community said they wanted affordable housing. The city, however, only conceded 5–10% of housing to be affordable housing, a very small concession to something the community wants. Of course, I don’t except the community to get everything they want; however, I wonder if the community organized, if they could push the city to give them more affordable waterfront housing.
Evergreen Hamilton is currently growing to become even more focused on community development. This is recognized in their current initiatives, such as the Civic Incubator that is a year-round program to facilitate the ability and knowledge of community members to create, implement and scale projects and programs that advance the needs of the community. To further support community development, Evergreen Hamilton hosts free Community Capacity-Building Workshops, monthly, to teach skills that community members may lack. These skills will help empower local communities and better place decision-making in the hands of local communities.
